Happy weekend, Rioters! We know a lot of you are starting to celebrate the holiday season with lights and parties, so we thought we’d share some of our home with you! While we don’t want to brag too much (maybe a little), New York City is absolutely gorgeous this time of year. We’re basically walking through a winter wonderland everyday and it’s seriously incredible. We also want to see some of your decorations whether you’re in the city or some other beautiful place! Share your holiday photos on social media and tag sweetriot so we can check them out. Safe and relaxing holidays :)

Still not convinced? Check out this article on 31 reasons why Christmas in New York CIty ruins you for life (because it really really does): http://www.buzzfeed.com/mjkiebus/reasons-christmas-in-new-york-city-ruins-you-for-life#.cjAqPEKrov

Right before Thanksgiving, sweetriot paired with New York University’s human rights journal Humanus to raise awareness about fair trade chocolate! And we want to encourage you to do something similar with your university, club or organization. Here’s how:

1) Find a group that’s interested in the fair trade cause. Even if you don’t have a human rights journal like NYU, look for other options like an environmental, political or even food-related group! These can be on or off campus. Still can’t think of one? Round up some friends who are interested in the cause and set a date!

2) Write up a pamphlet on fair trade or create an information sign. We handed out one-sided pamphlets with some quick facts about the benefits of buying fair trade and sweetriot’s contact information. We also had a poster with more information about Humanus and the importance of participating in human rights campaigns, but you can tailor your poster to whatever group you’re a part of. You can find resources on www.fairtradeusa.org.

3) Buy your chocolate from sweetriot! Whether it’s riotBars, nibs, squares or yummies, people will be a lot more interesting in learning about fair trade if they get a sweet treat in return. Healthy chocolate can sound too good to be true, so hand out some samples to show just how delicious being ethical can be (pretty freaking delicious).

It’s that easy! With a few hours and a little chocolate, anyone can start a riot for the hundreds of cacao farmers trying to improve their lives in South America. Don’t forget to give us a shout out on social media about your event - we’ll share your content and enter you in our weekly Instagram contest! Happy rioting :)

Hey Rioters! Thanksgiving is practically here and it’s never too early to start thinking about Christmas/Chanukah/Kwanzaa/New Years presents! Whether you want to treat yourself or a loved one this season, we made a list of 10 super awesome and riot-friendly gifts to make your life that much easier. Keep warm and riot on!

Conscious Box Gift Boxes: Conscious Box creates personalized packages of non-GMO, natural products every month. For the holidays, they’re putting together several limited edition gift boxes, two of which include sweetriot products! Check out the Decked Out Deluxe and Cozy Boxes and their other holiday boxes for an ethical and unique gift all your friends will love.

A subscription to sweetriot’s Riot Club: If you didn’t already know, sweetriot has a monthly Riot Club that offers awesome membership benefits for all our chocolate lovers out there. We’ll ship you (or your dearest friend) your favorite sweetriot products monthly, bi-monthly or quarterly for an especially low Riot Club price! It’s the gift that keeps on giving, so your gift-getter will be forever grateful ☺.

Special Edition riotBar Gift Set: Can’t get enough sweetriot? We also have a special edition riotBar gift set in honor of the holidays! We’re featuring 70% Dark Chocolate and super healthy super foods Chia seeds and Almond with Sea Salt combined into two delicious chocolate bars. Get it here.

Sevenly Boxes: Sevenly is a clothing retail store that offers personalized packages for amazing prices. You can sign your friend or family member up to receive a Cause Box every three months filled with super cute accessories for women. In return Sevenly will donate $7 every quarter to a charity that their clothing line sponsors of your choice! What a great way to give while also giving back.

Absynia on Etsy: Absynia designs handmade, artisan jewelry that caters to men and women. Elle Lewis, the creator, says her work is heavily influenced by the African diaspora, but also for her passion in overcoming worker abuse and child labor in factories over seas. Absynia offers a few holiday gift sets, but also has ton of other unique and beautiful pieces for sale.

Honest Coffees: Honest Coffees offers fair trade (woo!), delicious coffee from all over the world. Even better, they’ll deliver it right to your friend’s door! You let them know what kind of coffee lover your friend is, and they do the rest, sorting through their blends to find the perfect match. If they don’t get it just right? Try a different type! They’ll even send along a coffee machine, manufactured ethically, for a monthly fee.

Yummies 30oz Party Kit: Did you think we were done? Absolutely perfect for stocking stuffers and holiday parties, sweetriot offers 30oz bags of Yummies, our ultimate treat! Our candy-coated drops are made with natural ingredients, no artificial flavors, colors or preservatives, which make them a perfectly healthy treat for everyone to enjoy ☺.

Rockwood Music Hall: If you’re a New York City local like all of us are, then you know that Rockwood Music Hall is a great place to check out some underground, unique artists at a totally reasonable price. Check out their upcoming shows here and surprise a friend, significant other or family member with tickets to one of their (or your!) favorite musicians.

sweetriot Featured Artists: Every season we call on our rioters to rock the vote and pick their favorite artist’s work to be featured on our riotBars. Just because we aren’t hosting elections right now doesn’t mean our artists aren’t hard at work creating and showcasing new pieces, though. Check out our featured artists page and look into any artists that catch your eye. You might find the perfect piece of artwork for your friend’s apartment!

The New Yorker: To end on a classy note, we recommend a subscription to The New Yorker, a super hip and culturally savvy New York publication. Yes, we at sweetriot are a little biased as New York City natives, but we promise this magazine won’t disappoint! Not only will you impress your parents or friends with your sophisticated taste, but also everyone will love the weekly stories, both fascinating and educational. Take advantage of their holiday subscription deal here.

Happy Veterans Day, Rioters! While we believe that we never need an excuse to celebrate our veterans, devoting a day to them is a great way to say thanks. Veterans’ Day is meant to celebrate heroism, service and sacrifice on behalf of our country. In fact, the tradition dates all the way back to 1919 when President Wilson proclaimed November 11 as the first commemoration of Armistice Day (for all our history buffs out there). After almost a century, today still remains one of the most moving, heart-felt holidays of the year. sweetriot wants to remind you to take a second out of your busy day and think of the many courageous veterans America is so lucky to have. Whether you know a veteran personally or not, today is about coming together as a nation, despite our differences, for a bipartisan celebration of an incredibly brave, determined group of individuals. Be sure to check out any Veterans Day events your area, and thank you again from sweetriot to all the veterans and their families who have devotedly served our country.

As many of you know, today is Election Day and we think it’s important that everyone get out to vote! While sweetriot isn’t affiliated with any political party, we are huge advocates of speaking our minds. Our lovely Mastermind and Chief Rioter, Sarah, founded sweetriot as a way to have her beliefs heard while empowering the voiceless around the world. Instead of accepting the financial abuses cacao farmers endure every day, Sarah, and her determined team of Rioters, acted on them. And today you have a chance to act as well! People may try to tell you your vote doesn’t matter, that it’s one in a million, but that’s not true. Political activism is as important for our nation as it is good for your soul, and you will make a difference. There are a lot of tight races going on around the country, which means it’s especially important to make yourself heard. Whether it’s chocolate or Congress, standing up for what you believe is critical, so go GOTV (get out the vote), Rioters!

Happy Halloween, Rioters! To celebrate one of the BEST holidays of the year, we thought we'd share some throwback photos of the sweetriot team in Halloween costumes. See how long you can keep a straight face :) Have an awesome Halloween (especially the part where you eat lots of chocolate) from sweetriot!

Happy almost Halloween, rioters! To get you in the holiday spirit, we have yet another treat using our fair trade chocolate: dark chocolate covered strawberry ghosts! We used our 70% cacao squares, but feel free to experiment with your favorite sweetriot riotBar ☺ This recipe is super simple, but definitely for the more artistic chocoholics. You might be able to tell we had a little difficulty making our chocolate ghosts look like, well, actual ghosts. That definitely doesn’t mean they didn’t taste incredible though, so check out the recipe below for this quick and healthy DIY dessert!

Here’s what you’ll need:

1 carton of strawberries, washed2-3 squares of favorite sweetriot chocolate (depending on how coated you want the strawberries to be)A handful of edible candy eyeballs (you can find these at most major supermarkets and convenient stores)A sheet of parchment paper

Here’s what you do:

1. Wash the strawberries and lie them out on a paper towel to dry 2. In the mean time, unwrap the right amount of chocolate to taste (we used roughly 15 squares for 5 well-sized strawberries) 3. Put the squares in a microwave safe bowl and microwave for 30 seconds to 1 minute on high depending on how much chocolate you use 4. Take the bowl out and stir the chocolate. Place the bowl back in the microwave for another 30 seconds to 1 minute. If the chocolate is not entirely melted, that’s okay! 5. Stir until the chocolate has a liquid consistency and quickly dip the strawberries in the bowl before the chocolate hardens. 6. Place the chocolate strawberries on the parchment paper and stick on the candy eyeballs. 7. Use a knife or toothpick to swirl the excess chocolate coating into a “ghost tail” (which we obviously did super well) 8. Allow the chocolate strawberries to chill for 15 minutes and do not take them out of the refrigerator until they’re ready to eat!

Simple as that – just be careful not to get chocolate everywhere like we did. When it comes to clean up, remember to let the extra chocolate harden in the bowl and then throw it away (or hey, ya know, eat it). If you wash it down the sink it will harden and clog up your drain ☹ Have a great Halloween, rioters, and check back for a super cute surprise from our staff on Friday!

Halloween is less than two weeks away and that means lots of candy and (our favorite) chocolate! We’re super excited to see all of our rioters posting photos of their spooky costumes and decorations for the holiday, but we’re also hoping you’ll help us send an important message to all the trick-or-treaters running around this year. Here’s how you can help!

Chocolate comes from the cacao bean. If you’re like us and you love chocolate, you probably also love the awesome cacao farmers that supply it for all the chocoholics in the world. Unfortunately, though, cacao farmers can be cheated out of profits when they sell their harvests to middlemen who rig scales and give farmers false information about prices. On average, cacao farmers earn less than $2 a day. That’s less than a third of the United States’ hourly minimum wage! We’ve put up a couple other fair trade product profiles on our blog this month that talk about a similar issue: When we don’t buy fair trade, we’re hurting the individuals who truly deserve the profit for their products. Whether it’s coffee, sugar, cacao or some other good, these farmers have their families and themselves to support. With a stable income they can provide better educations and lifestyles for their children, which will dramatically improve their communities in the long term.

But there’s another serious issue going on in the chocolate industry: child labor. Particularly in Western Africa, which produces more than 70% of the world’s cacao, the use of child labor and slavery isn’t uncommon. Children in this area must begin working at a young age to support their families. Many are lured onto cacao farms by traffickers while others are forcefully sold. Mostly they are between the ages of 12 and 16, but some are as young as 5 when they begin farming. These children aren’t always given a choice, but you are. Not only do you fight against child labor and enslavement when you buy fair trade chocolate, but you also send a powerful message to the children you give that chocolate to this Halloween. Giving fair trade treats to your neighborhood children helps children on the other side of the globe have a brighter future—one without slavery or forced labor. And that’s a sweet deal for everyone!

There’s still plenty of time to purchase fair trade chocolate and candy for Halloween this year, and for all of the Halloweens to come. Make it your mission to not only help the farmers and children harvesting the cacao, but also to spread the message to future generations about the incredible impact fair trade relations can have on our world. It starts with you, this Halloween, and ends with a better tomorrow for the children, both here and thousands of miles away.

Hey Rioters! We have a special treat for you in honor of the fall season and to keep the celebration going for Fair Trade Month! We modified a recipe from Chelsea’s Messy Apron to create our Nib-chip Pumpkin Muffins, so definitely go check out more of her yummy recipes. These muffins are super easy to make, fair trade adapted and also healthy! Especially when using sweetriot’s cacao nibs. Check out our recipe below, and keep your eyes out for more sweetriot recipes in the works!

Ingredients:

1 cup canned pumpkin puree

2 tablespoons honey

2 tablespoons brown sugar, lightly packed

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 large egg

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon nutmeg

1 cup + 1 tablespoon all-purpose flour

1/3 - 1/2 cup sweetriot dark cacao nibs (depending on how much of a chocolate lover you are!)

Method:

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Spray a muffin tin with nonstick spray; do not use muffin liners with these.

Combine the pumpkin, honey, brown sugar, vanilla, and egg in a bowl. Beat until combined.

Halloween’s coming up, which means tons of sugar high children (…and adults) nibbling on everything from caramel apples to lollipops the size of their faces. sweetriot’s big on chocolate, but we know that not all the treats you’ll be giving out on Halloween will have chocolate in them. So we wanted to give our rioters the 411 on fair trade sugar in honor of Fair Trade Month!

A lot of people don’t realize that sugar is an important fair trade commodity, and that you can help farmers improve their lives by sticking to fair trade sugar products. Sugar cane farmers are some of the most impoverished in the world. They struggle with fluctuating prices and gaining access to the U.S. markets, which import more sugar than any other country in the world. According to the American Sugar Alliance, sugar costs today are lower than 30 years ago, yet the cost of a candy bar has risen 300 percent! These farmers are seriously struggling as a result, but we can create change.

Halloween is always fun, but sweetriot wants to make it all the better by using this candy-filled holiday as a chance to support sugar cane farmers around the world. Even if you’re not a chocolate person (although we’re pretty sure that you are), you can still take a stand against unfair trade policies that impoverish farmers and their families, and obstruct product development. This Halloween, go for the fair stuff and Riot on (sweetly)!